


Chili Peppers

by justanothersong



Series: Chili Pepper 'Verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Human Castiel, Literature is Hot, M/M, Professor Castiel, Supernatural AU: Not Hunters, Teacher Castiel, Teacher Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanothersong/pseuds/justanothersong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Winchester hears an off hand comment from one of his students and find himself browsing a website dedicated to rating university professors. He's not surprised by his rating -- but is a little miffed to see the department chair has an even better one. Clearly, something needs to be done about this.</p><p> </p><p>University!AU fic in honor of LiteraryOblivion's birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [literaryoblivion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryoblivion/gifts).



First days of new semesters were always harsh on students. There were schedules to memorize, mazes of hallways to navigate in search of lecture halls never before noticed, last minute books and supplies to buy, and, worst of all, new professors to meet. Dean had once hated the first day of the semester, particularly when it meant bleary-eyed Monday mornings muddling through new syllabi without benefit of a proper cup of coffee. But now, new semester starts meant something else entirely: fresh meat.

Dean leaned against the front of the desk, observing the crowd before him. A few students slipped in as quietly as they could from the back door while some fiddled with their bookbags and notebooks, and a few flipped through the three sparse pages of their syllabus; most just looked ahead with half-closed eyes, probably cursing their choice of a nine a.m. class to start the Spring semester. It wasn’t really all that early, but for a first day back after the luxury of winter break, anything before noon was cutting it a little too close to dawn for the matriculating masses.

“I think we’re all here, so let’s get started,” Dean called out with a grin. A few students in the front row shared the simultaneous thought that it was eerily reminiscent of a certain shark in _Jaws_ – or _Finding Nemo_ , for the younger students. “Welcome to Survey in American Fiction of the 20th Century.”

A few eyebrows shot up as he spoke. The sparkle in his green eyes and the wicked tease to his full-lipped smile made Dean Winchester seem younger than his years upon first encounter, a fact he enjoyed drawing out when approaching his new students. The small but elite university in northern Illinois had a reputation for formal manners and decorum, but Dean had greeted his class that morning in well-worn dark jeans and faded Metallica t-shirt – _Escape from the Studio_ tour in ’95, not the best but still decent, picked up used and abused on eBay – a far cry from the expected suit and tie combo sported by many professors.

“I’m Professor Winchester. Feel free to call me professor, doctor, whatever you like,” he went on, hoping the tired students understood the casual atmosphere he sought to create. He paused and winked at a pretty redhead in the second row that had caught his eye, and his smile grew when she flushed as red as her flaming hair. “Even Dean, if you’re feeling brave,” he added.

He stood and walked to his lectern and slid his hands across the polished wooden surface, glancing down at the syllabus he had placed there five minutes before students started streaming into the class.

“Just a few quick notes before we begin,” he went on. “First off, remember: you’re in college. This is an upper level course. So if you’re going to sleep here, at least have the intelligence to do it in the back of the class.” He punctuated his sentence with a sharp fist slammed on the lectern, startling a long-haired long-legged guy that vaguely reminded Dean of his overgrown brother out of his dreams and into an embarrassed and drool-soaked reality. A few snickers rose from the rest of the group while the sasquatch joined the redhead in the Dr. Winchester Made Me Blush Like a Schoolgirl club.

“Other than that, we do things simple here,” Dean went on, beginning to pace the front of the classroom, a habit he picked up early in his career. “I’ll warn you though, last semester some dick lodged a complaint about my ‘language’ during lectures, so the department chair wants me to let you know, in case I should offend your delicate sensibilities.”

He offered the group another smirk and earned a soft round of laughter.

“Okay, so we’re set. Everyone check out your syllabus for the reading list,” Dean began, pausing for the inevitable shuffling of paper before continuing. “We’re going to hit all the high notes of the 20th century in American fiction, so as you can see we’ll be reading some Hemingway, some Shirley Jackson, some Steinbeck, and a lot of Vonnegut, cos this is my class and I fucking love Vonnegut. Any questions?”

 

In the lecture hall next door, things were progressing on a somewhat different note.

“Now that we’re all here, I think we can begin,” the dark haired man at the front of the class spoke in an even tone. His voice has startled the students new to his classes, none having expected the deep and gravelly sounds to come from the lean and somewhat dapper professor. Seemingly in direct contrast to his neighbor, he was dressed in dark slacks and a navy blue waistcoat with a subtle charcoal pinstripe pattern, layered over a dress shirt in a lighter but dusky blue shade, the top collar button left open. 

He flashed a kind smile to his class, the crinkling lines at the corners of his lively blue eyes drawing an audible sigh from a young woman in the front row who didn’t even seem to realize she had made a noise. He chose to ignore it and save her any embarrassment, though it was clear by the eye roll of the boy sitting next to her that it hadn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the students.

“Welcome to Biblical Backgrounds of British and American Literature. For those of you who have not taken any of my courses before, my name is Dr. Castiel James. I’ve been wanting to teach this course for some time and was glad to see it become part of the Spring catalog, so I thank you for joining me in this inaugural semester.” 

He paused and turned towards his desk, taking a long sip from a cardboard coffee cup that had been cooling there and picking up a thick packet of paper. His students already had their syllabus, as he had left a copy of it, fresh and warm from the Xerox machine, sitting on each desk before they had arrived.

“If you open to the front page of your syllabus, you’ll find my office hours and contact information, as well as a course description and a list of your necessary materials,” Castiel went on in his even tone. “As this is a literature course, we will be studying the Christian Bible alongside many classic pieces of literature and tracing its influence on the British and American canons. For this purpose, we’ll be treating the Bible as a work of literature and lore, and discussing it as such. I hope this won’t offend anyone?”

Castiel scanned the sea of faces before him, searching for some righteous fury or even mild irritation, but found none. It drew another smile from the professor, faltering suddenly as a burst of raucous laughter sounded from the lecture hall next door. His dark brows drew into a frown.

“Unfortunately, it seems our meeting space is neighboring that of a professor known for his somewhat… boisterous… discussions. But I think we can manage. Shall we begin?”


	2. Chapter 2

It was a month and a half into the new semester before Dean heard the words that would change the tenor of the coming months entirely. His morning class had been going rather well, the students digging into _The Old Man and the Sea_ with relative ease, making him hopeful as they neared the more difficult works he had selected for their reading list. The first major paper was due in little more than a week and his students had gotten the wild-eyed squirrelly look that always came with an approaching deadline, so Dean made a point to stay an extra twenty minutes or so after class, as the lecture hall would remain unused until the afternoon, allowing for any questions that might come up. Office hours were well and good, but Dean knew it was helpful to have the professor on hand directly after class for those things that just popped into the mind during discussion.

The blushing redhead still had a habit of flaming up every time he addressed her directly, and now also had a name – Anna – and a bevy of questions about the upcoming paper. She had cycled through a half-dozen prospective topics in five minutes, giving Dean something of a headache as he tried to keep up.

“What about comparison and contrast?” she chirped, fluttering hazel eyes as flirtatiously as she could manage while badgering her professor. “I was thinking if I jumped ahead to Steinbeck and read _Of Mice and Men_ this weekend it would be a good novel to compare to Hemingway. I read it already in high school so I can already see the points of contrast, and…”

“Anna, Anna, Anna, calm down,” Dean finally cut in with a laugh, gently resting his hand a moment atop hers, stopping her from gesticulating wildly with a ballpoint pen that had a clearly chewed cap. “You’re getting way ahead of the rest of us here.”

One cue, Anna’s face bloomed a wild blush. “I’m so sorry, Profess… Dean,” she responded breathlessly. “This is our first paper and I’ve never taken one of your classes before and I just wanted it to be perfect.”

Dean gave the nervous student an indulgent smile. “I’m sure it will be,” he replied. “We’re only looking at eight pages here, Anna. Eight pages on one relatively short novel. Skip anything comparative, just get to the meat of what Hemingway was saying, as you see it. Wow me. I know you can do it.”

Anna thanked him, stuttered and shivered and fluttered her way through it, and made her way towards the door where Rachel, a serious blonde who was always at Anna’s side, was waiting.

“What if he’s a harsh grader?” Anna whispered to her friend, just a mite too loud. Dean heard every word clear as a bell, and was about to respond that he gave everything a fair shake even if he disagreed, so long as students provided textual examples to support their claim, when Rachel spoke up.

“Don’t worry,” she responded to the worried redhead. “We can check Rate My Professors when we get back to your dorm.”

Dean quirked an eyebrow and watched them leave, suddenly intrigued. His curiosity would have to wait, however, as a skittish kid who consistently had a distinctly skunky cloud of odor about him was waiting to pry some answers from his professor.

Turning back to him, Dean nodded in greeting. “What can I do for you, Andy?”

 

Dean arrived home to find a familiar moose of a man in a rumpled suit sprawled face down on his couch. He was about to address his Jolly Green brother but the words quickly derailed into a string of curses as he tripped over an umbrella that had somehow fallen from the stand near the door.

“Son of a bitch, what the hell is this doing here?” Dean growled to no one in particular. He contemplated snapping the offending umbrella in half out of annoyance, but had settled on viciously shoving it to the back of the hall closet when his brother raised his tousled head from the couch cushion.

“Can you even walk in a door without being so loud?” he groaned from the couch.

“Shut up, bitch,” Dean growled in reply. “This is my house, I can be as loud as I want. Why are you even here?” He threw the messenger bag containing his notes and paperwork onto the couch, landing squarely on his brother’s legs, earning another annoyed groan as the man went facedown back into the cushion.

“It’s Monday. I was promised burgers,” he replied, voice muffled. “And I’m exhausted and your place is closer to the firm.”

Dean ignored him, collapsing into an arm chair. “You ever hear of something like Rate the Professor?” he asked.

The response came as a quiet grumble into the couch, until Dean leaned forward and backhanded his brother against his leg, forcing the tired man to raise his head and glare back at him.

“Fucking ow, you jerk,” he snapped, frowning deeply. “Just Google it and let me sleep if you’re not going to feed me.” He returned to his facedown position, clearly fed up with the situation.

Dean snorted and reached for his brother’s laptop, discarded some time ago on the coffee table.  
“Yeah you can wait to eat, I got stuff to do here, Sammy.”

Dinner was clearly going to be late, as Dean quickly found the website his students had referred to and became entirely caught up in it. The idea itself was simple enough: a forum where college students could rate their professors based on their helpfulness, clarity, and the ease of the course, providing a sounding board and warning system for other students. Once he understood the concept, it took Dean only seconds to type in his own name and search the commentary.

He smiled when he saw his overall rating fell in at a solid 4.4. Helpfulness and clarity scores were high, but the easiness score hovered just below 3.0. That was something Dean didn’t feel sorry about in the least; he was fair, but he taught upper level literature courses at a fairly prestigious university. It was only appropriate that he held high standards for his students, especially when he knew they were all more than capable of meeting them, if they only put in the effort. Besides, it was professors just like that who pushed Dean just hard enough to get him where he was today.

A small smile crept onto his face. It still hit him with a sense of awe, every once in a while, when he thought about how far he had come. A high school teacher had once kindly stapled a McDonald’s application to a failed test paper; what would bitchy Ms. Talbot think if she saw him now? No McJob for Dean Winchester.

Glancing back at the website, Dean noticed a small red symbol next to his scores. He squinted a bit – he would have to cave and get reading glasses one of these days, too many nights reading Stephen King with a flashlight under the covers – before recognizing it as a chili pepper. Arching an eyebrow, he hovered his mouse and noticed it had a link attached, quickly clicking it to find out what it was all about.

Dean’s jaw dropped when he read the explanation. ‘Is your professor hot?’ the website asked.   
‘Hot professors get a red chili pepper.’ He barked out a laugh and reached over to slap his brother’s calf once again.

“Sammy! I’m hot!” he exclaimed.

“Turn down the heater,” came the muffled reply.

Dean snorted. “No, Sam, seriously, I’m hot. My students think I’m hot. Shit, read some of this stuff. ‘Smart and really cute’. Heh. Cute. Oh check this one out, ‘Dr. Winchester’s lectures sometimes go off topic but totally worth it for the eye candy.” He chuckled to himself; this website was turning out to be a lot more interesting than he had realized.

“I’m so happy for you,” Sam responded sourly. “Also, I’m starving.” His complaints seemed to fall on deaf ears, as Dean’s attention had been taken up entirely by the site.

When the page refreshed, Dean’s eyebrows shot up. A new review had appeared with top marks on all counts, noting the course number of his morning fiction class. Having heard Rachel and Anna’s conversation that morning, he had a good idea of who had added the new review, with comments that simply read ‘DAT ASS’.

Dinner was going to be very very late.


	3. Chapter 3

The website held Dean’s attention for well over a week. He found himself refreshing it regularly, waiting for new reviews to appear, and appear they did, most bearing a sentence or two related directly to his physical form. He decided his favorite was the primly worded review expressing great admiration for his novel choices, his lively discourse, and his, to quote directly, “teaching skills you could bounce a quarter off”. 

Of course, they were all spontaneous reviews. It’s not as though Dean encouraged his students to get a little warm for his form. If it happened that he wore the too-tight jeans he had shrunk in the dryer, the ones that put just about everything he had on display, a little more often, it was just that his washing routine had somehow cycled them to the top of his drawer. If he hit the gym before class and forgot to change out of his sweaty t-shirt, pausing to do so once he reached the lecture hall, then hey, he was a little absentminded and a little tired out after his workout, especially so early in the morning, that was all. He certainly wasn’t showing off.

Even if it got him a repeat review with high marks straight across the board, and commentary stating, “I said this before, and I’ll say it again: DAT ASS!”.

Eventually, though, the novelty wore off, and the pressing demands of the semester caught up with him, with thirty-odd papers to grade and a new selection of short stories to read. A drizzly Wednesday morning found Dean seated atop a student desk with his feet on the attached chair in the left corner of the room, leading a discussion on _The Lottery_. Absently he hoped the rain would end before that afternoon; he had rented a tennis court on campus for the day and he and Dr. Harvelle, a young professor in the psychology department, were planning on an epic game of roller hockey.

“So tell me about the box,” Dean said, bouncing a tennis ball off the tile floor of the lecture hall. It sprung from the ground and hit the classroom wall before bouncing back into Dean’s waiting hang, over and over again. 

“It’s a newer box,” Anna pointed out. “Not the original.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, that’s true,” he agreed. “Not the original. But it’s still got some authenticity to it, right?”

“Yeah, wasn’t it made like… like with pieces of the old one? Like, the first one,” Andy offered, earning a few nods from his fellow classmates.

“‘There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here’,” Dean quoted directly from the story, adding nothing else. He continued to toss the tennis ball, seemingly enjoying the soft rhythm of each _thunk thunk thunk_ against the wall.

“And some dude wants to make a new one,” Andy continued, “And keeps saying they should make a new one but no one wants to, even though they can’t even say for sure if the one they got is even from the old box at all.”

“Exactly,” Dean agreed. “Refusing to break from their tradition, even if they can’t authenticate the tradition’s origins. What can we draw from this? What is Jackson trying to say here?”

“It’s about religion. The church,” Rachel spoke up, nodding to herself and tapping a pen against her chin as she spoke. “The box… the box is like the true cross, the one that Christ was supposed to have been crucified on. I think some Catholic churches claim even to have pieces of that. The people, they’re blindly following these traditions, holding onto this relic, even though there’s no one left and no record to tell them if there’s any real point to it.”

Dean grinned. He always loved it when a student made a breakthrough. Rachel, with her modest skirts and golden cross constantly dangling on a chain around her neck, had spoke against every religious theme or symbol that the other students had found in the works they had read. To see her embracing an author’s theme, even if it disagreed with her own sentiments, was the sort of thing Dean lived for.

“Very good, Rachel,” he said, nodding again. To his surprise, a bright blush that rivaled only Anna’s in color suddenly flamed the blonde’s cheeks. “Now what can we…” he began again, only to be interrupted.

The door to his classroom swung open hard enough to bang against the wall. A very flustered-looking department chair burst in and soundly caught Dean’s bouncing tennis ball with an outstretched hand before it could reach Dean’s own and glared at the offending professor a long moment before stalking out, ball in hand.

Without missing a beat, Dean stood and walked towards the still open door.  
“So, as I was saying,” he went on, ignoring the stunned silence from his students, who knew very well that Dr. James was the English department chair and, in essence, their handsome professor’s boss. “What can we draw about the lottery system itself, from this heavy religious implication that Jackson pressed with the information she provided about the box?”

As he spoke, he closed the classroom door and flicked the lock on the door handle, then moved towards his desk, where a zippered gym bag sat on the floor. He reached in and removed a second tennis ball before heading back to the seat he had abandoned moments before.

“Rachel? Any thoughts?”

 

Three rows back and just slightly to the left of the neighboring lecture hall, a brunette with a heart-shaped face and a penchant for leather jackets and dark lipstick couldn’t help but raise her delicately arched brows and bite her lip when her professor stormed back into the classroom, a tennis ball clutched so tightly in his hand that it seemed its very seams might burst.

“I apologize for that interruption,” Castiel huffed, throwing the tennis ball so that it landed with a clank in the metal trash bin, rolling around the bottom for some time after with the momentum of the throw.

The professor exhaled a deep breath and straightened his waistcoat – grey today, with a very subtle houndstooth print in a slightly darker shade – pausing another moment to unbutton the cuffs of his white dress shirt and roll the sleeves to his elbows. He didn’t seem to notice the hushed murmur that drifted through his students, most of whom had never seen him in so casual an appearance. Even his dark hair seemed to have suffered from whatever confrontation had taken place in the neighboring class, the usually neatly combed locks suddenly ruffled and sticking up at odd angles. When the professor heaved another sigh and pushed his fingers back through his tousled tresses, it became clear where the sudden disturbance had originated.

“All right, let’s continue. Where did we leave off?”

“Christ figures in Rossetti’s _Goblin Market_ ,” the brunette spoke up.

Castiel smiled and nodded in her direction. “Thank you, Meghan,” he replied, doing his best to ignore the obvious wink the student sent him. “Now Simon, in _Lord of the Flies_ , was a quite obvious use of this technique, but it falls a little differently when we start looking into poetry…”

_Thunk. Thunk. Thunk._

The noise that had interrupted his class for most of the morning had begun once again, and Castiel glared silently at the wall.

 

When class ended, the brunette was quick to approach Castiel’s desk, where he had sat to begin gathering his papers and books into the leather satchel he carried slung over his shoulder from class to class. The other students filed out, some sparing their professor a glance as they left while most murmured back and forth about their upcoming poetry project.

“Dr. James?” the brunette asked, giving her professor the most friendly and innocent look she could muster, difficult as it was with the permanent twinkle of mischief set deep in her dark hazel eyes. 

“Yes, Meghan? Is there something I could help you with?” Castiel replied with a small friendly smile.

“There was just something I was hopin’ you could do for me,” she replied with a full grin.

Castiel raised his eyebrows. “Oh?” he responded.

“See, no one really calls me Meghan,” the girl replied. “I really don’t like it all that much. I was just hopin’ you’d call me ‘Meg’ instead. Everyone does.”

Castiel gave her a full smile. “Absolutely, ‘Meg’ it is. Not a problem. I definitely understand a preference for a shortened name.”

She gave a low chuckle. “Yeah… ‘Castiel’, right? Kind of a… mouthful.”

Her professor cleared his throat, knowing he wasn’t imagining the flirtatious pique to her voice.  
“Is there anything else I can help you with, Meg?” he asked.

“Well, to be honest, I wouldn’t mind some, maybe, private study sessions,” she told him, taking a step forward, her books clutched to her chest. “Or even, I don’t know if you’re really all that religious, but prayer meetings? I’m really good on my knees, Dr. James.”

Flustered, Castiel cleared his throat again. “I’m sure… I’m sure you don’t need any more study than you’ve been putting in, Meg. Your work has been very good. If you’re concerned, though, you can always go to the tutoring center.”

Deflated, Meg twisted her lips into a frown. “All right then,” she agreed after a long moment, and gave a sigh. “If that’s how you want it.”

 

Dean was still chuckling over the morning’s events and his later roller hockey win (he didn’t care what Jo said – that last goal doesn’t count if she had to hip-check him to get it!) when the thought occurred to him, for the first time since his discovery of the strange little website, to check out some of his colleagues. He resolved to take a look as soon as he got home, and tossed his messenger bag on the couch without even looking as he walked in, rolling his eyes at the immediate groan it caused.

“Dude, do you even look before you throw shit?” Sam grumbled from the couch. Once again he wore a rumpled suit, blue for a change, and once again he was sprawled across Dean’s couch, though this time he was stretched out on his back.

“Do you even have an apartment anymore?” Dean responded. “Are you squatting here and I just failed to notice it?”

His little brother glared at him. “I told you. Long drive. Your place is closer. And I’m fucking exhausted. My caseload is insane.”

Dean snorted and commandeered his brother’s laptop from where it rest on the coffee table, plunking himself down in the armchair.   
“I warned you about doing all this pro bono shit, Sammy,” he replied, earning an eyeroll from his brother. It was all in jest, of course. In truth, Dean couldn’t be prouder of his little brother, a freaky genius type who could be making the big bucks at some huge corporation, but instead chose to spend his time helping people. 

“Worth it,” Sam replied with a sigh, and shut his eyes, rolling onto his side to face the back of the couch as his brother began typing.

 

Dean smirked when he pulled up Jo’s page on the website. She pulled high marks across all of the categories and rated a chili pepper as well, not something that surprised Dean at all. Jo Harvelle was a gorgeous blonde with velvety dark eyes and a gregarious (if somewhat intimidating) personality. She was a favorite of the psychology department and more than a few of her students had made clumsy passes at her in the past.

It made Dean smile to know that Jo, who also taught a women’s self-defense class on campus, could probably break most of her dithering freshman suitors in half. The top comment on her page made him laugh at out loud: “I love her. I fear her, but I love her”. That seemed to encapsulate Jo perfectly.

Dean checked out a few more of his friends before turning his thoughts to his department chair and their little confrontation that morning. He had unlocked his classroom door to let his students out into the world as class ended, to find the man standing there, glaring with his arms crossed and his mouth pressed into a thin furious line. Dean had simply flashed his most charming smile.

Dr. Castiel James was rated at a 3.3, solid but quite a bit lower than Dean, who grinned at the thought of it. Helpfulness and clarity were high scores, but he was apparently not considered to be a terribly easy grader, falling as low as 2.1. Castiel rated a chili pepper as well, but for some reason, his was surrounded by an orange glow; a quick click made it clear that it meant that his ‘hotness’ rating surpassed that of Dean and Jo, which was a god damn shame if there ever was one.

Clicking back to view Castiel’s comments, a new rating and comment appeared just as Dean refreshed the page, and it made his jaw drop. “Dr. James is wicked smart and damn sexy but a complete tease! Totally offered a no strings attached BJ and got turned down!”

Dean started open-mouthed at the screen. “Son of a bitch!” he finally spat out.


	4. Chapter 4

From the moment that Dean knew his department chair had gathered a higher hotness quotient, the competition was _on_ – whether Castiel realized it or not. The only person Dean confided this information in at all had been Jo, who had taken to wearing tank tops that were probably a bit too low cut for the faculty dress code, though no one dared call her on it. A week’s time had her little chili pepper icon glowing, leaving Dean even more disgruntled than he had been at the start.

Totally unfair, in his opinion. It’s not like he could show up at work with half his package hanging out to turn a few heads; Jo was at an undue advantage! Castiel, at least, Dean felt he could meet on even ground – even if the straight-laced professor was entirely unaware of the competition. Still, as the weeks passed, Dean saw no changes to his much maligned hotness rating. The commentary kept coming (“Dude has a total hard on for Vonnegut”) and his overall rating even managed to climb (4.6! Suck it!), but he still hadn’t received the all-important gradient glow around his chili pepper icon.

And it was driving him up the fucking wall.

 

A drizzly morning in early April found Dean without a class to teach; they’d had a test that day, a very simple and fairly easy multiple choice affair that Dean always provided after each novel, to both ensure his students actually read the books and to give them a bit of padding in their grade, should their essays not be up to snuff, and it had taken the class no time at all to finish and hurry out into the morning’s light rain. When the last student had finally turned in his test and plodded out to enjoy the freedom of the remaining period, Dean had found himself with a good forty-five minutes left before he had to make his way to the English department for a brief meeting; the summer semester was already rearing its ugly head and Dean and the other professors who had gotten strong-armed into teaching a class had to turn in their syllabi for approval. That in itself was enough to put Dean in a sour mood – after all, what good is teaching if you don’t at least get the summers off?

Irritated and slightly bored, Dean thought he could cheer himself up by trying to get a leg up on the competition. Since he had no students to charm, the next best thing? Spying on his lecture hall neighbor, of course. He saw Castiel outside of the classroom all the time, but the thought occurred to him that he had never witnessed the man actually at the lectern before a group of students. Perhaps the key to his chili pepper glow was all in his teaching style.

Either way, it would give Dean something to do for the next half hour or so.

 

Dr. James was mid-lecture when Dean peeked in through the open door, standing just outside of the corridor light’s glow; he remained mostly in shadow, the gloom of the morning darkening the dismal hallway, with no help from the rest of the classrooms, which all remained close-doored. From where he stood, Dean could easily see Castiel, pacing slowly back and forth in front of the desk, a motion that was all too familiar to Dean.

“When we last looked at poetry, we were exploring for Christ figures,” Castiel said to his class in a deep and easy tone. “This time, however, we’re looking for different aspects. Rather than examining seemingly secular works for their Biblical implications, I want to take on some overtly religious poetry and see if we can’t find some less lofty ideas. Please turn to page three in today’s handouts.”

Dean had to suppress a snort. Castiel had become notorious in the department for his class handouts, usually three or four pages apiece, to be given out to his students at almost every class meeting. Dean understood the logic – there was no point in asking a student to buy an entire book for one short story or one poem – but the time and resources it consumed with the department office’s lone Xerox machine was enough to drive his colleagues mad.

“You’ll see that I’ve given you some poems to read over before our next meeting, but for now, please turn your attention to number fourteen of John Donne’s _Holy Sonnets_ , in the upper right of the page. Some of you may be familiar with his work already, if you’ve taken Professor Winchester’s Introduction to British Literature,” Castiel went on, and from his hiding place, Dean was couldn’t help but give a small smile. Everyone referred to the course as Intro to Brit Lit – everyone but Castiel, who seemed to luxuriate in long words and many syllables. The fact that he even noted Dean’s own course, well, that was something, particularly since it was a standard introductory course in the discipline, and three other professors, including Castiel himself, regularly took the helm.

“Seems pretty straight forward praying to me,” a drawling voice spoke up from the back of the room. Dean couldn’t see the face, but recognized the sound immediately – Garth had been an interesting addition to his American Literary Naturalism course the previous semester, when he had provided a sock puppet interpretation of _McTeague_ for the class in lieu of a more subdued presentation.

Castiel smiled at his student, and Dean perhaps grinned a little wider himself, watching the way the fine lines beside Castiel’s eyes turned into handsome little crinkles as he smiled.

 

“Like many sonnets, I believe much of the interpretation lies in the presentation,” he responded, pulling on a pair of thin-rimmed reading glasses before retrieving a worn paperback with yellowed pages and a garish teal cover from where it sat on his desk, opening it to a bookmarked page. “If I may?” he offered the class, and received an affirmative murmur from the gathered students.

Dean’s eyebrows pulled towards his forehead in surprise; he had read to his students on occasion, finding that he enjoyed it and his students seemed to take the words more to heart when spoken, but for some reason never imagined Castiel doing the same. It would be interesting to see – and hear – to say the least.

Castiel cleared his throat, and leaned back against his desk, facing his class. One palm went flat on the wooden desktop, while the other held the book aloft, and his ankles crossed neatly in a relaxed position as his weight rest against the desk.

“Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you as yet but knock; breathe, shine, and seek to mend,” Castiel began, voice gravelly but sweet as it bent each word to its sound. “That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend your force to break… blow… burn… and make me new.”

Dean swallowed hard. He’d read Donne. He’d taught Donne, spoken it aloud. Not the religious stuff, no, mostly the more snarky and overtly perverse, but even then, even when it was rank obvious, it never came off sounding like that.

“I, like an usurp'd town, to another due, labour to admit you, but O, to no end. Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,” Castiel went on, his voice rising in strength as he spoke, but just as quickly slipping back to a more subdued tone, as though he was well practiced in weaving a seductive spell using only the words of a 16th century metaphysical. “But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, but am betroth'd unto your enemy. Divorce me... untie... or break that knot again.”

His words became short sharp bursts, a rhythm that Dean knew all too well, a rhythm he himself used to speak when reading out the heavy tones of poetry broken in meter to mimic a human heartbeat. Dean’s own heart rose to the occasion, pounding its beat to the cadence of Castiel’s words. 

“Take me to you. Imprison me. For I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free,” Castiel went on, reading the final couplet. “Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”

Dean swallowed hard, again. He was pretty sure most of the class let out a few long-held breaths at the same time. Castiel simply glanced up at his students, removed his glasses, and gestured towards them with the paperback still in hand.

“Thoughts?” he asked.

There was silence, until a lone hand rose somewhere in the second row.

“Yes, Becky?” Castiel called out, and Dean grimaced, knowing who it must be. He’d had a certain Miss Rosen in two classes last semester, and was well acquainted with her rather unique perspective on some of their reading material; he’d certainly never read some of those books the same way again.

“Um,” Becky began, faltering a moment before adding, “That was hot.”

Castiel chuckled softly, and then began talking about Donne and his use of sexual ecstasy as a basis for religious ecstasy, and Dean’s brain turned off somewhere around the last ten minutes and he simply watched the other man move about the classroom, listening to the sound of his voice but not really hearing the words. 

When the class period came to an end and the students began gathering their papers and books, Dean was readying himself to disappear into the thrum of traffic as people poured into the hallway, but before he could, Castiel turned his gaze directly towards the door and tilted his head just gently to the side.

“Dr. Winchester,” he called quietly, voice low enough that Dean would be surprised if any of the students heard it. “If you wait a moment, I will walk with you back to the department office. If you wouldn’t mind stopping to get a cup of coffee on the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literature is hawt.  
> Shaddup, it is.


	5. Chapter 5

The meeting was mostly uneventful, though Dean did find himself seated in the semicircle of chairs beside Castiel, coffee in hand, when he would normally be found sitting atop the ancient boxy radiators that lined the office windows and generally not paying attention to departmental proceedings. Beyond that, it was quiet and functional and nothing new really came about, save one more thing. When Dean handed in his syllabus for his summer course, the perfunctory Introduction to Poetry, Castiel had been surprised to see small changes made in blue ballpoint pen. Shorter pieces had been scratched out from some units, and an addition of a section on emotional impact of verse had been added, focusing primarily on Shakespeare, Neruda, and Donne. Castiel’s eyebrows had gone up and he glanced to Dean with the barest quirk of a smile tugging at the edges of his lips.

“These three?” he asked, a brief question that seemed somehow a private conversation, in spite of the half dozen colleagues cluttered about the small department office.

Dean cleared his throat, coloring only slightly. “Thought it might be interesting to put line to line, sonnet to sonnet,” he said, trying to sound casual.

“Holy Sonnet fourteen?” Castiel asked.

Dean nodded. “Against Shakespeare’s 129,” he responded, color deepening only slightly. “And Neruda’s 17.” The dusting of freckles across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose seemed starkly visible with the rush of blood to his face, his green eyes standing out even more with the change in complexion.

Castiel allowed a full close-lipped smile at Dean’s words. “I imagine that would be… very interesting,” he responded softly. “Perhaps I should audit the course, as you did mine today.”

Dean could only nod in reply.

 

Things changed at the university after that day. A once tepid working relationship had grown decidedly warmer; when Dean arrived into his classroom the week following the meeting, he was very surprised to see a sudden change to the lecture hall. His classroom and Castiel’s neighboring one were divided by a retractable wall that, when removed, made it available for large classes or guest speakers to host events. Dean had made use of this with his tennis ball antics earlier in the semester, knowing the noise of it would echo louder against the temporary divider. To his surprise, the retractable divider had been opened a good six or seven inches; if Dean stood at his lectern or even paced in front of his desk, he had the perfect view of his colleague’s space in front of his class.

The sudden inside view into Castiel’s classroom was something of a distraction for Dean, who often found himself peering through the gap during quiet moments in his class discussions, and even occasionally losing his train of thought because of it. Still, he made no move to close the divider, knowing he would all too soon mourn the loss of the interesting discussions he heard filtering through the opening.

Yeah. The discussions. That was it.

The first week of May arrived and with it some surprisingly cold and brutal weather. Heavy storms slammed the area for days, and with them a chilly bite to the air. One Wednesday morning found Dean at his desk in his morning class, browsing through a dog-eared copy of _We Have Always Lived in the Castle_ , booted feet propped atop the desk, while his students scribbled out in-class essays on _Harrison Bergeron_. He found himself repeatedly glancing towards the open divider, wondering where his colleague was, even as a particularly harsh roll of thunder seemed to make the walls tremble.

The storms had been particularly bad that morning. Dean had heard tornado sirens sounding as he drove through a quiet suburb en route to the university and, once arrived, had been quick to note the relative emptiness of the parking lot; it seemed a lot of students and even professors had decided not to brave the rain. Dean had even deigned to borrow his brother’s sensible hybrid for the ride to work, rather than subject his baby – a beautifully restored 60’s era muscle car – to the inclement weather.

But Dr. James was different; he was more dedicated to his students and his job, and Dean had even heard stories from years before he had arrived at the university, about the department chair turning up for a seven-thirty class on a blustery morning when few had managed to even shovel out from their front doors. For him not to have turned up, even in the heavy rain, was beginning to make Dean anxious and worried, with thoughts of road accidents crashing about in his head. He had been near to excusing himself from the room and putting in a call to campus security for any word on accidents in the area when the door to Castiel’s classroom swung open and the man rushed inside.

“Good morning,” he called to his class, settling a briefcase still dripping with rainwater on the floor beside his desk. “I must apologize for my lateness, and for my appearance.” It was only then that Dean noticed just how the straight-laced and elegant professor was dressed.

In place of his perfectly pressed trousers were a pair of university track pants in black nylon, with the university logo and their football team’s name (“Go Bulldogs!”) embroidered in bright white down the right leg, looking stiff and new from the university store. Rather than a dress shirt, waistcoat, and tie, Castiel wore a faded black t-shirt turned inside out, a white tag with writing illegible from years of washing sticking out from the back, the back collar dampened with water dripping down his neck. In place of his typical loafers was a pair of well-worn running shoes, obviously pulled from his gym locker.

Castiel gave his class a small smile. “I seem to have misplaced my umbrella,” he explained, “And had something of the appearance of a ‘drowned rat’ when I made my way in.” His words earned a chuckle from his students, and he lifted one hand to push wet and unruly dark locks back in an attempt to neaten their wild appearance.

“If you’ll bring out your notes on our last meeting, I’d like to pick up where we left off with Dostoevsky,” he began, and turned on shoes squeaking with the fall of rainwater from his hair towards the dry-erase board sitting on an angle in the corner near the wall gap. Dean watched as his department chair uncapped a green marker that had been sitting along the board ledge and stretched an arm up to begin writing.

There was a sharp intake of breath coming from somewhere in Castiel’s classroom, and Dean could understand why. The black t-shirt, though too broad in the shoulders, fell too short against Castiel’s waist, and when he stretched an arm to begin making notes for his day’s lesson, it pulled up enough to reveal a strip of his toned skin. A gentle swathe of dark hair rose to greet his navel, and the tail end of a tattoo winding down his side, black ink reading simply ‘as I fall asleep’, became visible with the stretch, as well as the sharp jut of the man’s hip bones. The gasp, Dean guessed, had come from the sight of the purpling bruise just along the crease of Castiel’s hip.

To the back rows, Dean supposed, it must look like nothing more than a birthmark. Perhaps to the third or fourth row, he thought, it might be revealed as something else: the pressured bruising of a place where lips were pressed hard to skin, the soft flesh laved over with a worshipping tongue. To the front row, where Dean could see through gap the garish yellow of Becky Rosen’s unique style in tights and her childish saddle shoes, the center of the mark must be clearly visible – a defined set of teeth marks.

Dean’s eyebrows shot up as he met Castiel’s gaze, glancing downward to gesture towards what he and the students could see and Castiel seemed unaware was on display, until the professor suddenly flushed and pulled his t-shirt down.

Castiel cleared his throat. “Perhaps we will not use the white board today,” he said quietly.

Dean chuckled softly and went back to his reading. Seeing Dr. Castiel James at all disheveled and out of his usual gentlemanly stylings was one thing, but seeing evidence of a life outside of his classroom and any mark of less than demure variety was something else entirely. What his students must think of him now!


	6. Chapter 6

The semester was quickly drawing to a close and, much to Dean’s chagrin, he still had not attained the elusive glow around his chili pepper icon. He just didn’t understand it; he wasn’t the most egotistical of men – quite the opposite, more often than not – but he knew he wasn’t exactly terrible to look at. The steady stream of hookups in his early college years was testament enough of that. And he could understand well enough what made Castiel’s students sigh and make eyes at the professor all day long – he wasn’t blind, after all.

And yet it irked him, some little nagging nuisance at the back of his mind that he, Dean Winchester, the ‘fun’ professor in the department, the one that students felt comfortable calling by his first name, invited to parties, and would even share a table with in the cafeteria, had a lower score. He was approachable. He was friendly.

And he was _cute_ , damn it. Surely that should garner a higher hotness rating, shouldn’t it?

Dean’s overall frustration with the competition between himself and the department chair – the competition that Castiel, of course, had no idea he had been dragged into – began to gnaw and tweak at his more childish streak. If he couldn’t surpass the other man on the hotness scale, then surely he could just… annoy the living hell out of him. At least it would be good for a laugh or two, seeing if he could ruffle the unrufflable. And it’s not like Dean would get fired for it.

 _Probably_ not.

 

He went back to the tennis balls first. With the gap in the wall continually left open, it made quite a noise, rocking back and forth from the floor to the wall and back to Dean’s hand. The steady rhythm of the tennis ball became the background noise for all of Dean’s lectures, but this time, it elicited no response from the other side. Just to mix things up, Dean aimed a bounce so that the ball jumped directly through the wall gap; he was certain it would do the trick and gain a suitably irritated response from his neighbor.

To Dean’s astonishment, Castiel caught the tennis ball without so much as a glance in its direction, and just as quickly snapped his wrist and sent it bouncing back through the gap. It sprung past where Dean sat, too surprised to even attempt to catch it, and dribbled itself off to hit the corner and roll out among the student desks.

Dean stared openly at Castiel through the gap; the professor on the other side sent a smug little smirk back, paired with subtle arch of an eyebrow, before turning back to his students as though nothing had happened at all.

 

Next came the whistling. It wasn’t constant; it wasn’t even often. But whenever there was a lull in Dean’s class, he would whistle, very quietly, just under his breath. And always when he was near enough to the wall gap for Castiel to hear, even if his students could not. It went on for some time, until Castiel began sending answering whistles every time Dean tried to bother him.

 

Chewing gum came after, loud snaps and popping bubbles. Castiel never flinched, and Dean’s teeth were aching by the third day, so he gave it up pretty quickly. It backfired horribly when his students took it as sign they were allowed gum in his class, and soon the room was filled with the sounds of popping and snapping. Of course, some ended up on the floor, and under the desks, and it took three boxes of pastries from an overpriced bakery several miles away from campus for the custodial crew to start straightening up Dean’s lecture halls again.

 

It was the pencils that finally did it, finally pushed Castiel to the brink. Like many of those who followed his discipline, Castiel – and Dean as well, for that matter – was something of a hobbyist when it came to writing. He wrote his fair share of academic papers, found himself published in several well-lauded journals, but in his quiet moments he often scribbled out lines of verse, just on his own time, just for him to enjoy. The blinking cursor of a computer screen was far too impersonal for the words he wrote, matters of the heart more than the mind, so for Castiel, a pencil pressed to the pages of a journal was the best medium. He liked the smell of the paper and the gentle scratch of lead against it, soft like the beating wing of a tiny bird. Castiel liked pencils just fine. It was pencil sharpeners, however, that grated on his nerves.

Dean arrived to class one morning with an electric pencil sharpener tucked under his arm, and boxes of bright yellow pencils waiting in his messenger bag. His students were working in small groups for final study sessions before they turned in their last essays at the next meeting, and Dean was only there in a more or less supervisory capacity. He paid little attention to the students at all, and spent most of the session sharpening pencils instead. 

It just happened that every time he pressed a fresh pencil into the business end of the sharpener was the same moment Castiel would open his mouth to speak in the neighboring classroom. 

Every. Damn. Time.

Of course, it wasn’t some whisper quiet modern machine, no. Dean had to really dig into a supply closet to find it, a huge relic of years past that growled and grinded whenever engaged, loud and angry and absolutely impossible to ignore. He could see Castiel getting flustered, more and more annoyed as the clock ticked out the final minutes of the semester. The tips of the other man’s ears were turning red, a side effect of the abject anger he was clearly swallowing down in order to speak with his students. 

 

When the last moments of the session ended, Dean was smirking to himself and stood and pack up and wait for any last second questions from his students as they filtered out, never expecting the divider between his classroom and Castiel’s next door to get pushed open wider, creaking and groaning against the force of Castiel’s palm. He stalked into Dean’s classroom, blue eyes lit with fury.

“Just what the hell is it that you think you’re doing?” he asked angrily, marching right up into Dean’s personal space. Dean’s mouth fell open but he made no sound, surprised at the sudden intrusion of the incensed professor. It had all just been fun and games, right? Hadn’t it?

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I have thirty-two students to teach and both them and I do not need your incessant interruptions,” he continued, hands on his hips as he spoke. Dean had a brief wild thought that this would do nothing to curb the department chair’s hotness rating, standing there full of righteous fury in his tailored slacks, smart black waistcoat, and cherry red tie.

“I don’t think this is really the place to have this discussion, Dr. James,” Dean responded slowly, taking a tiny step backwards. 

Castiel simply took another step forward, eyes trained directly on Dean’s, ignoring the hushed crowds of students still seated at their desks or peering in from the open divider.

“I don’t think this was really the place for whatever childish game you’ve been playing all semester, Dr. Winchester, but you deemed it appropriate then, so why not now?” he replied.

Dean’s hand crept to the back of his neck in a vaguely nervous gesture. “Hey, Cas, calm down, it’s not that big of a deal…” he said, forcing himself to sound casual and friendly.

“I think it is a big deal, Dean, and I don’t appreciate your attitude, not in the least,” Castiel replied, shaking his head. “In case you forget, I am the chair of your department, as well as on the tenure committee,” he went on, voice becoming a low growl. “If you have any hope for a future here... you should show me some respect.”

Dean didn’t even know how to respond; he just stared wide-eyed, until the other man took a step back and turned towards the door. 

“We will continue this discussion later, Dr. Winchester,” he said, voice gone quiet and deadly. “Don’t think this is over.” He stalked away, leaving Dean and both of their classes to stare after him.


	7. Chapter 7

Last days of the semester were always harsh on professors, especially those who had taken on leadership roles in their departments. Grading papers and essays and projects, muddling through student presentations, and answering last panicked questions about finals tended to spill over from usual office hours for even adjunct professors. For those like Castiel, who had departmental workings to deal with, budgets to plan, red tape to cut through, all on top of a full teaching courseload, it was exhausting. It was even worse that particular semester, with the department’s professor emeritus, who often picked up much of the administrative slack from the harried department chair, on sabbatical until the fall.

Students at least had their summer break to look forward to, or, at the least, an exceptionally light class schedule, if they decided to remain on campus for the summer semester. All that Castiel had to look forward to was finishing all that he could of his day’s work and heading home for a few hours of sleep, before returning to do it all again the following day.

Wednesdays were particularly light for Castiel, teaching only his morning class and an early afternoon graduate seminar on Dickens. Even though his last class ended just before two o’clock, he still didn’t pull out of the parking lot until well after six, and he was actually leaving early for a change. There had been a few disagreements between some adjuncts about sharing office space, and a fairly major plagiarism case to look over involving the son of a board trustee, and on top of all of that, the confrontation with Dean that morning. There was no way he was going to stick around until eight or nine that evening, like he had been doing for the two weeks prior. He was tired and hungry, and Castiel was just done for the day.

 

Opening the front door to his house, Castiel paused a moment to close his eyes and take a long deep breath. Even on the worst days, the safe and comfortable sounds and scents of his home helped the tension ease out of his mind, giving him the first step towards finally relaxing, if only for a few hours. 

He was hit immediately with the scent of garlic, onion, and rich tomato simmering somewhere in the kitchen. Castiel’s stomach gave a half-hearted growl, though he knew well enough to know that it wouldn’t be ready for some time; he was home earlier than planned, and supper would not be ready until at least nine that evening. It left him with some time to kill, and he thought perhaps a brief nap would be in order. Cooking aromas aside, the scent of home was heady and inviting on its own: leather from the armchair, a hint of lemon from the furniture polish, lingering wisps of coffee from that morning, and of course the dry papery scent of books tucked neatly into the shelves that lined the living room. Home.  
Castiel rested his briefcase in the armchair and tucked his umbrella into the stand near the door. He heaved a deep yawn and stretched, rolling each shoulder and his neck in turn before slipping out of his tan overcoat. He tossed it over the back of the couch, breaking a small smile at the responding, “C’mon, man, really? There is a closet, you know.”

“Don’t like it, go sleep at home,” Castiel responded with a low chuckle. He slipped off his shoes, kicking them onto a mat by the door, and padded in his mismatched socks towards his bedroom, loosening the knot of his tie as he went.

The bedroom door was open a crack and Castiel reached out with one hand to push it open, surprising Dean as he sat on the edge of the bed, leaned over to unlace the one boot he still wore; the other was sitting abandoned not far from the bed. Dean glanced up in surprise, the startled expression quickly softening to a fond but timid smile.

“Hey Cas,” he called quietly, mindful of his younger brother snoozing on the living room couch just down the hall.

Castiel gave a tired smile. “Hello Dean,” he replied.

Dean kicked his remaining boot off, leaving it to rest beside its companion, and walked slowly towards Castiel, watching with clear uncertainty pooling in his eyes.

“Didn’t expect you back for a few hours,” Dean told him honestly, hooking his thumbs into the back pockets of his jeans, stopping just short of where Castiel stood. “Didn’t expect to even see you tonight.”

With a short sigh, Castiel reached forward and slid his arms through Dean’s, drawing the other man in close and resting his head on Dean’s shoulder. He closed his eyes and sighed, inhaling a deep breath, realizing almost instantly that he had been wrong when he stepped in the door. The living room carried with it no scent of home, no… this was it, this here, in Dean’s arms. Leather from the jacket he always wore. The hint of peppermint from the red and white mints he kept in the glovebox and the tea he swore up and down he didn’t drink but Castiel still had to restock every grocery day. Faint scent of motor oil and engine grease, because not a day went by that he didn’t pop the hood of his baby and tinker with her, just making sure everything was still perfect. 

This was the scent of home. Dean was home.

“I had to,” Castiel finally spoke softly. “You pushed, and pushed, and I knew it was a game, I knew, but it got bad, it got so bad, and I had to Dean, I couldn’t let it go anymore. People were noticing.”

Dean heaved a sigh of his own and slid his arms around Castiel’s waist. “I know, angel,” he agreed, using the pet name that only seemed to slip into his speech when they were alone. “I took it too far.”

Castiel was never sure what it was exactly that made Dean think everything was his fault, all of the time, but he tried to curb it as often as he could. He had a hell of a temper and did his best to keep it in check, but no one could push his buttons quite like Dean, no one. The game had gone a little too far and when he’d heard the whispers beginning among staff and students, Castiel had known there would need to be some sort of public confrontation, but he hadn’t counted on his ire getting the best of him. 

He hadn’t counted on Dean believing it. On thinking that Castiel wouldn’t come home.

They just stood there quietly for a long moment, each drinking in the other’s presence. Dean closed his eyes and tucked his head into the crook of Castiel’s neck, holding tightly as though he was afraid the other man would flutter off and disappear. He gripped tighter when he felt Castiel moving in his arms, and sucked in a deep breath, waiting for the angry words he was certain were coming. Castiel’s hands drifted up to rest on either side of Dean’s face, gently rubbing against his five o’clock shadow and turning the taller man’s gaze to meet his own.

“I think we both took it a little too far,” he told Dean, the ghost of mirth surfacing in his blue eyes; the same began to echo onto Dean’s features.

“You wore my shirt to class, man,” Dean agreed with a nod, the seriousness of the conversation drifting away easily as a smile slid to his face and he remembered a particularly rain-soaked morning. “You know what it does to me, seein’ you in my clothes.”

“You hid my umbrella.”

“Not on purpose.”

“You sure about that?”

“…Maybe.”

They dissolved into laughter then, the tension that had built in the room quickly dissipating into nothing, and their embrace became relaxed, warm and comfortably familiar. Realizing he was still dressed for the classroom, Castiel move to pull off his tie and found Dean’s helpful fingers just as quickly pulling at the buttons on his waistcoat. When Dean’s searching hands made quick work of the waistcoat, they moved on to Castiel’s dress shirt and then the thin t-shirt underneath; Castiel arched an eyebrow, gliding his hands to rest over Dean’s where they had crept to the black leather belt at Castiel’s waist.

“Your brother is here,” Castiel said.

“He’s sleeping,” Dean pointed out.

“What about dinner?”

“Needs to simmer for a couple more hours. You know I’d never have it ready until after you’d usually get back.”

 

They still had much to talk about but the fight, for what it was, was over. Castiel had often marveled at how easily Dean could switch from angry to hurt to something else entirely. Perhaps, he thought, this was best; perhaps they just needed that physical reminder of the bond they shared, something to allay the secret fears Dean so rarely spoke and to give Castiel himself something tangible to hold on to.

Castiel ran his thumb slowly across Dean’s lower lip, tracing the path he had so often kissed and smiling faintly when he felt the other man’s mouth pull into a grin. He leaned gently forward to press a line of soft kisses to Dean’s jaw, feeling as the other man sighed contentedly, his hands settling on Castiel’s hips, thumbs rubbing gentle circles into the jut of his hipbones. 

It was clear to Dean when Castiel made the decision to agree with his idea by the way he found himself suddenly disrobed down to a too-tight pair of dark blue boxer briefs, flat on his back on the bed, while Castiel still wore half-undone slacks and an open belt. The door had somehow gotten closed and Dean didn’t find any need to figure out when that had happened, too caught up in the sensation of Castiel’s soft lips pressing against the angry red marks on his skin where the elastic band of the boxers had dug in, product of reaching into the wrong side of a dresser drawer on a dark morning and being too tired to bother going back for another pair.

Dean hitched in a breath when Castiel’s quick tongue flicked out to sooth his reddened skin, letting out a low-pitched groan when the blue-eyed man paused to scrape his teeth against the taut flesh. That was Dean’s own fault; his overzealous worship of Castiel’s hip had been on display for an entire classroom to witness, and Castiel had responded by making a point to mark Dean up just as much ever since.

Not that Dean minded. Castiel could have branded his own name or his handprint into Dean’s skin, and Dean would be happy for the claiming.

 

Dean’s hair was still mussed and wet from the shower, sending droplets of water cascading down his bare back, when he made his way out of the bedroom hours later. Sam stood in the kitchen, stirring a pot of boiling water filled to the brim with half-cooked angel hair pasta to keep the noodles from sticking to the pan. He glanced up at his brother, barely dressed in a pair of sweatpants, and glared.

“I’m not deaf, you know,” Sam said grumpily.

Dean snickered. “You’re a big boy, Sam. Don’t tell me I have to explain the birds and the bees to you now.”

“Seriously, Dean?” Sam replied, frown deepening. “You knew I was here, you could at least have… I don’t know, kept the volume to a minimum or something.”

Dean grinned at his younger brother. “No can do, Sammy,” he responded. “Me and Cas are…”

“Nope, don’t wanna know!” Sam cut him off quickly, hands up in a gesture of surrender, causing Dean to practically cackle with glee. It was good to know that he could still catch his gargantuan little brother off guard and make him uncomfortable – if not entirely squeamish.

 

Castiel was still drying off and with Sam seemingly taking over finishing up the night’s meal, Dean decided to take a moment and check on his little pet obsession, one last time. His laptop had been idling on the kitchen table and he swiveled a chair backwards to sit with his chin resting on the back, quickly opening the laptop to pull up a browser. 

Sam glared. “Yeah okay, I guess I’ll finish making your dinner then,” he said, stripping off the grey jacket of his rumpled suit and slinging over the back of a kitchen chair.

“Wouldn’t kill you, bitch,” Dean replied, eyes glued to the laptop screen. “Feed you enough as it is, you can help out around here once in a while.”

“Jerk,” Sam grumbled in reply, pulling a colander out from a cabinet and setting it in the sink to wait for the pasta to finish cooking. 

Dean had just pulled up his page on the professor rating site he had been obsessing over for months when he heard the door to his bedroom open and close. He quickly pulled up his university email in a second tab, pretending to be browsing through a few desperate last minute pleas from his students when Castiel walked in, clad only in the university track pants he had purchased after getting caught in the rain some months before.

“Hello Sam,” he called, earning only a disgruntled huff in reply. Castiel couldn’t help but smile softly to himself, having expected as much from Dean’s brother. He had been concerned about the other man’s presence in the house to begin with, but thought better of it when he remembered how often Sam had been couch-surfing there as of late. Par for the course, after all.

Castiel leaned against Dean’s back, unconsciously lining the tattoos that ran down their sides up against one another. Both in black ink, set in the same script, each had half the finishing couplet of a favorite poem etched into their skin. 

_So close that your hand on my chest is my hand_ , Dean’s ink read.

 _So close that your eyes close as I fall asleep_ , Castiel’s seemed to reply.

It had been two years since they had made the trip to a small but well-loved tattoo parlor a few hours outside of the university town, finalizing their union as two halves of the same whole with the last words of a poem they had read together during many a long night. Neither regretted the decision in the least, knowing that the words of the poet tied them together forever, no matter what the outside world might think.

 

“I didn’t know you had Meg Masters in one of your classes,” Castiel spoke, catching the familiar name of his more overtly affectionate student in Dean’s email inbox.

“Yeah, World Lit,” Dean replied. “She stopped showing up a month ago but’s been offering to double the length of her term paper for a better grade.”

Castiel smirked. “That’s not what she offered me,” he said with a snort.

Dean glowered. “Yeah, I know what she offered you,” he grumbled. Castiel had been damn near insufferable for a week after Meg’s invitation; at least, Dean had reasoned, it helped him put a name and face to the more risqué entry on Castiel’s rating page.

Castiel was still chuckling when he circled his arms over Dean’s, commandeering the touchpad mouse on the laptop and clicking back to the tab Dean had thought the other man wouldn’t notice. Dean was speechless as Castiel clicked the garish button declaring _Rate This Professor!_ and started filling out the form that popped up, giving Dean top scores in all the categories and taking care to make sure Dean saw him click the _‘Hot!’_ radial button before tabbing into the comment box.

“Dr. Winchester is a brilliant man whose enthusiasm and passion for his subject is infectious. He is kind and caring, helps his students wherever he can, and takes care to allow them to give voice to their thoughts and opinions during class discussion,” Castiel typed, earning a smile and a gentle pink flush on Dean’s cheeks.

Castiel entered a line break and began to write, “He also gives great hea…”

“Whoa, hey!” Dean spat out, causing the man above him to laugh and backspace over what he had been typing.

Instead of his intended line, Castiel added, “And he does totally have a hard-on for Vonnegut.”

“I never argued that fact,” Dean pointed out.

Castiel entered a line break and wrote, “And his car.”

Dean snorted, but didn’t respond. Another line break, and Castiel’s hands flew quickly over the keyboard.

“And Dr. James,” he added, and punched the _‘Submit’_ button before Dean could stop him.

“Cas!” he yelped, quickly reloading his page and gaping to see the new review posted right at the top of his page. He moved to flag the rating for content but Castiel quickly covered Dean’s hand with his own, stopping him before he could click.

“No one will care, Dean,” he intoned against the other man’s ear, pausing a moment to nip at his earlobe. “No one will care and in a few months, no one will be able to do anything, even if they did care. You’ll be tenured and we can stop playing this game.”

“And stop paying rent on an empty apartment to keep up separate addresses,” Sam piped in from where he stood draining the pasta over the sink.

Dean sighed and relaxed back against Castiel. “There’s no guarantee I’ll be tenured,” he said quietly, earning a snort from the man behind him.

“You’ve been published in eight different journals in the last six months, you have a new book coming out in July that will have a blurb from a Harvard dean on the cover, and your student reviews are always glowing,” Castiel told him. “Plus you’re sleeping with someone on the board. I’d say you’re a shoe-in. And then they can’t touch us.”

Faculty relationships weren’t exactly frowned upon at the university, so long as they were kept relatively low-key and unobtrusive. A tenured department chair and a junior professor in the department, however… it could cause problems. Dean and Castiel’s original hesitance to make their relationship known had gone to outright hiding in plain sight when Castiel received the position within the department; they’d been waiting ages for Dean to reach tenure – relatively young as he was – so that they wouldn’t have to worry any longer.

Dean sighed again. “If you say so,” he grumbled, never quite believing he deserved the praise that Castiel heaped upon him.

Castiel clicked his tongue but changed the subject, point out the chili pepper icon on Dean’s page. “Hot enough for you now?” he asked, noting the new glow that had appeared around the image.

“Hey! About damn time I…” Dean began, then trailed off. He narrowed his eyes and glanced over his shoulder at Castiel. “You knew?” he asked.

Castiel grinned and dropped a light kiss on Dean’s forehead. “Of course I knew, Dean. I use your laptop all the time, it didn’t take much to figure out what you were obsessing over.” Sam could be heard snickering just behind them, but they ignored it.

Dean frowned. “So, what, you poke through my browser history?”

With a sigh and a roll of his eyes, Castiel leaned over to open a new browser window. All he had to type was the letter “R” – which made sense, given that Castiel was a closet Reddit junkie and would spend hours poring over the site – and the professor rating page popped up in the bar.

“Damn Chrome,” Dean said, shaking his head. Curious suddenly, he clicked over and opened up Castiel’s own page on the site, noting a flurry of new ratings having been posted just that day. The uppermost comment read “Dr. James is a BAMF”, with each line thereafter containing something similar.

At least, Dean reasoned, they had reached some equilibrium on the hotness scale, though his eyes widened when they shot to Castiel’s chili pepper icon. It was no longer just glowing; it was on fire.

“Son of a bitch!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for reading! I had such fun writing this, I may have to revisit the 'verse now and again.  
> Kinda want to write Dean and Cast meeting for the first time now :D

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://literatec.tumblr.com), if you wish.
> 
> Please do not add this, or any of my posted works, to Goodreads. Thank you.


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